This invention relates to connecting a network to one or more radio frequency channels. More specifically, the invention relates to connecting a telephone network to one or more radio frequency channels.
Refer to FIG. 1. The use of telephone service has dramatically increased as a result of the popularity of the Internet. In addition to a single telephone line for voice conversation, it is increasingly common to find homes with multiple phone lines 135, so that the second fine can be used for business or for Internet access.
Wire fine residential phone service essentially means connecting a twisted pair of wires 110 originating in the central office of the telephone company to a physical wired circuit, connected to a number of wired phones in the residence 115. These twisted pairs are packaged in bundles of up to several thousand wires, attached to a switch through a wiring frame in the central office and these large bundles are then attached from telephone pole 120 to telephone pole through the neighborhoods. Outside a given residence the particular pair of wires that provide service to that residence is exited from the bundle and brought to the house, where it is attached to the in-house wiring. Once the twisted pair is attached to the in-house wiring, it may be connected to a traditional, wired telephone 125, as is manufactured by Southwestern Bell, GE or Sony.
Cordless phones are terminal devices attached to the existing land line (wired) networks of today. Two devices comprise a cordless phone 130: a base unit and a handset. The base unit connects directly to one or two wired lines of the existing network and extends them by radio to the handset. The cordless phone provides total transparency, viz: the land line network does not know that it is terminated in a cordless phone rather than a traditional wired telephone set. The base unit""s main functions are to provide a full-duplex audio channel between the land line and the handset, and an interface between the wired network signaling and appropriate devices in the handset such as the switch hook, the bell (alerting device), and the dial pad. Various methods are used in cordless phones to provide security, meaning protection against unauthorized use of the land line channels, and privacy, meaning protection from eavesdropping. Cordless phones are typically sold in base-handset pairs which can be set to one of several code-pattems by the consumer, usually by means of a multi-contact switch bank. The radio-frequency sections of cordless phones are low-power and with the exception of high-end units which use spread-spectrum frequency-hopping techniques as a security means, they are not frequency-agile, meaning they do not change frequency during a call. In particular, cordless phones do not use frequency agility as a means of improving the switching functions or services of the networks to which they are connected.
Cellular telephone systems, while cordless, are substantially different from cordless telephone sets. Cellular telephone handsets are both frequency-mobile and power-mobile, and are constantly supervised by the cell controller. They use many more frequencies than cordless telephones. The fundamental feature of cellular systems is to provide mobility of the handsets over wide areas, even hundreds of miles. It is not possible to provide sufficient RF power to cover wide areas, and there are insufficient assigned frequencies to serve the number of users on a frequency-per-user basis. As a result, cellular telephony divides all geography into relatively small xe2x80x9ccellsxe2x80x9d, each with a central antenna 140, using a subset of all frequencies, allowing low-power communications with handsets 145, inside the cell boundary. Each cell adjacent to a given cell will use a different subset of frequencies (146,147), and cells a short distance away can reuse the same frequencies because of the low RF power used in the cells. The control system for cellular telephone systems C10 is extremely complex. Each cell controller continually monitors the signal strength of all handsets in its own cell and in adjacent cells, so when a handset moves into the boundary between two cells, both cell controllers know where the handset is and in what direction it is moving. At the appropriate moment a xe2x80x9chand-offxe2x80x9d occurs during which the cell controllers instruct the handset to change to a frequency that is used in the cell it is entering. At the same time the land line connection is changed from the old cell to the new cell, providing continuity for the voice connection.
To provide wireless data access in well trafficked areas such as hotels and airports, firms such as MobileStar (http://www.mobilestar.com) provide publicly accessible wireless LANs. These allow subscribers, equipped with the appropriate passwords, hardware and software for their laptops, to communicate through wireless LAN techniques, and through a gateway and router to their corporate LANs and the Internet. The wireless access point in the airport or hotel is generally provisioned with a broadband (T1 or above) wired channel to the network. These facilities are shared rather than dedicated, with the routers functioning to transfer packets to their appropriate destinations.
Installation and maintenance of traditional wired telephony service from the pole or post to the structure and then within the structure to the telephone instrument(s) is a labor intensive operation. To install service it is necessary to dispatch personnel to the site. When service failures occur it is also often necessary to dispatch maintenance personnel (xe2x80x9croll the truckxe2x80x9d) to the house in order to examine the wiring, and repair it. This is expensive, time consuming and requires coordination with the residents to ensure that someone will be home.
To provide standard wired telephone service, outside a given residence the particular pair of wires that provide service to that residence is exited from the bundle and brought to the house, where it is attached to the in-house wiring. When additional service is required previously unused pairs must be employed. If there is not an unused pair which has already been brought to the house from the bundle, then an additional pair must be brought in. Again this requires maintenance personnel, on-site labor, and coordination with the residents. If there are no unused pairs available to bring to the house, this can cause significant delay to the resident requesting the new service, and expense to the telephone company which may have to provide new capacity to the area.
Telephone inside the home may be wired or wireless, with wireless phones requiring a dedicated base station. These are generally more expensive than wired phones, since they contain additional dedicated hardware required to communicate through radio frequencies with the handset. Further, these phones draw more power than a plain old wired telephone, and generally require power drawn from a different electrical system (e.g. home electrical wiring). In order to provide service during power failures, these must have battery backups.
Additionally, wireless phones share a disadvantage of wired phones connected to the same pair; that is, that a conversation held on one wireless handset is audible to anyone listening on another telephone, wire line or wireless, connected to the same pair. With existing systems, there is no way to guarantee privacy of conversation when multiple phones are connected to the same pair.
With a dedicated pair, the user is guaranteed a connection path to the central office. With that dedicated pair, and traditional phone service, the user is guaranteed only one connection path to the central office. There is no additional capacity available on a temporary, ad hoc, basis. For example, if someone is using the phone for a voice conversation or a computer connection, no outbound or inbound calls can be established. PBXs, e.g. as used by hotels, have a similar problem. Frequently, hotels serving large groups such as business meetings or conventions find that all their outbound toll lines are in use. This generates customer annoyance and frustration, as many users find themselves unable to make a phone call.
This dedicated resource service design has disadvantages for the carrier as well. Despite high demand, the carrier cannot easily offer additional services such as shared lines, temporary excess capacity, and new subscriber access. The carrier cannot extend even best effort services to users desiring it. In an area where many twisted pairs may be temporarily idle, the carrier cannot use them to offer service since they are dedicated to absent users.
Cellular telephony has the advantage that no wires need be run to the neighborhoods at all, let alone the home. Cellular does not allow for the adhoc addition of outbound or inbound connections. Additionally, cellular uses a relatively rare and regulated resourcexe2x80x94frequency spectrum, which does not exist in unlimited quantities. In many jurisdictions the local exchange carrier will not be able to offer this service, without a cellular license.
Telephone service in the local neighborhood has not allowed for flexible business arrangements. Service has been on a dedicated line basis, or in past years, on a party line basis as mediated by the good conduct of neighbors. Life line services (i.e. services with high reliability that are always there, like xe2x80x9c911xe2x80x9d), and non life line (i.e. services that might not always be available, e.g. on power surges) billing models have not been offered. Such services as the following have not been enabled:
1) multiple simultaneous call capability (e.g. different calls to different phones within a household) with only one phone number, both inbound and outbound.
2) best efforts telephone connections based on availability of one of a pool of fines back to the central office.
3) auctioning for available telephone resource.
4) premiere or gold services (e.g. next available line, or ability to interrupt existing conversations).
An object of this invention is an improved apparatus, system, and method for connecting a network to one or more radio frequency channels.
An object of this invention is an improved apparatus, system, and method to enable multiple simultaneous call capability (e.g. different calls to different phones within a household) with only one phone number, both inbound and outbound.
An object of this invention is an improved apparatus, system, and method to enable best efforts telephone connections based on availability of one of a pool of lines back to the central office.
The present invention is a wireless device and method capable of being wirelessly connected to one or more network node devices that in turn is connected to one or more of a plurality of wirelines, preferably telephone wirelines. The wireless device has one or more wireless signal generators supporting one or more wireless connections, one or more memories that store an identifier, and a negotiator that negotiates with the network node device in order to establish a connection to one or more of the wirelines connected to the network node.